Edgy Design Ideas In Store

Retailers' Inspired Touches Start With Central Element

Interior design ideas taken from retail spaces to the home. At Per Se Aveda… (MICHAEL McANDREWS, Hartford…)

November 19, 2010|By DEBORAH HORNBLOW, Special to The Courant

Looking for interior design ideas?

Go shopping.

While many retail stores have a utilitarian feel, engineered to show off the maximum amount of merchandise, a handful of others have stylishly designed spaces using principles, techniques and inspirations adaptable to home design.

Shari Phillips, owner of Per Se Aveda Lifestyle Salonspa in West Hartford's Blue Back Square, has designed and renovated several homes and retail spaces. Whether she's working on her living room or the lounge area at Per Se, she asks herself, "What kind of invitation do you want to give your guests? What kind of feeling do you want them to have when they walk into your space?"

At Per Se, Phillips wanted a space where clients would "completely unwind and detach from the outside environment."

Kimberly Mattson Moster, owner of Kimberly Boutiques in West Hartford and Guilford, recently moved her West Hartford store two doors down into a freshly renovated space. "I wanted everything simple and clean, a loft feeling," she says.

A novice at creating a functional, stylish retail space from bare walls, Moster relied on the same techniques she used to decorate her home. First, she visited a lot of New York stores for inspiration — and to define the elements that would give her the look she was after.

Dan Blow, co-owner of Japanalia Eiko in Hartford, drew upon his background in theater to create the design for his store, a multi-function space that combines clothing sales with gallery exhibitions and periodic cabaret performances.

Moster, Phillips and Blow all began their designs with a single element.

"At home in my living room, I picked the rug first," says Moster. At the store, "I knew I wanted a leopard couch, so I worked everything around that." If you don't choose one thing, "it gets too confusing," she says.

For Phillips, the design for Per Se began with a pair of photographs depicting a sunrise and a sunset. "They're photographs done in green. To me, they meant the beginning and the end," the setting sun evoking the relaxation she wants clients to feel as they enter Per Se and enjoy its services.

For Blow, the first design element had to be the floor. "There was no floor," he says. "It was all rot." Drawing on the company colors of black, white and red, Blow created a checkered black-and-white tile floor, then painted the back wall and ceiling red.

Other design elements followed. Moster's color scheme is borrowed from the leopard-print couch fabric. "I pulled out brown, gold and ivory colors," she says. The gold is echoed in a large gilt mirror, the dark brown is repeated in the custom counter that wraps around the cash register at the center of the store, and the ivory can be seen most prominently in the iridescent off-white liqi-stone floor, and in the pale palette used to paint the walls, shelving, and portable display pieces.

Phillips picked up the greens from the sunrise/sunset photographs and added earthy colors, including chocolate brown and orange for the eco-conscious salon.

"We used all organic materials, including the paint and the bamboo floors." The cement floor in the lounge area was already there, so Phillips chose to work with it rather than have it blasted out and carted to a landfill. She used a special paint technique to create swirls of color that evoke a stream of water, which begins the "journey" of relaxation.

Blow's space, divided between the Japanalia retail store and its On One outlet, was adapted around changes made by gallery owner Janice LaMotta, who for a time occupied the Japanalia part of the space. LaMotta had installed a pale wooden floor, which Blow maintained. To make it blend with the other design elements, he installed floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves. "It keeps it warm-looking and makes the space look much bigger than it is," he says.

Each retailer was careful to include softening details. Moster has an ivory shag carpet beneath her leopard couch, and swaths of leopard fabric curtain the dressing rooms. Phillips created a seating area with two deeply cushioned, boldly patterned chairs, a rug and an ottoman. Blow installed long swaths of fabric in bright or iridescent materials that help create a sense of light and move the eye upward.

Blow's chief concern was how to make a small, narrow space appear larger. He used glass display cases "to keep an open feeling" and maximized vertical space — installing shelving and a system of pipes that function as hangars.